Hand trucks are one of the most commonly utilized pieces of equipment for manual transportation of small, heavy items over short distances. Such devices are commonly utilized for delivery and stocking operations, such as transporting boxes of products from a truck to a delivery point or for transporting quantities of merchandise from a storage area to a retail shelf for stocking.
One (1) common concern with hand trucks is that their narrow platform results in vertical stacking of objects during transport. When the objects are unloaded at the delivery point, they are removed from the top down. As the last remaining boxes or objects are removed from the hand truck, the user is forced to bend over nearly to the floor, which poses safety and health concerns.
Another common problem with hand trucks is that, while they are very efficient for moving objects across flat ground surfaces with minimal strain, it is very difficult to navigate even minor vertical obstructions such as stairways or even single steps in the entranceway of a building. This generally forces the user to either get help, lift the entire hand truck and load over the obstruction, or manually transport the objects beyond the point of the obstruction.
Various attempts have been made to provide mechanically or electrically assisted hand trucks adapted to help a user lift the laden hand truck during use. Examples of these attempts can be seen by reference to several U.S. patents. U.S. Pat. No. 4,057,119, issued in the name of Melson, describes a powered hand truck adapted to help a user climb stairs. U.S. Pat. No. 5,829,763, issued in the name of Jeavons, describes an attachable elevating unit for hand trucks which provides assisted lifting of the entire hand truck against a ground surface. U.S. Pat. No. 6,398,477, issued in the name of Fox, discloses an electric hand truck with motorized lift capabilities for raising or lowering objects from loading docks, trucks, or the like.
While these apparatuses fulfill their respective, particular objectives, each of these references suffer from one (1) or more of the aforementioned disadvantages. Many such apparatuses are very slow to operate. Also, many such apparatuses help to navigate the hand truck over stairs and the like but do not assist in unloading objects on the hand truck in an elevated manner. Furthermore, many such apparatuses are not adapted to navigate vertical obstructions. In addition, many such objects are slow to operate and unnecessarily complex when, for instance, the user desires to quickly navigate a single step while entering a building. Accordingly, there exists a need for a hand truck without the disadvantages as described above. The development of the present invention substantially departs from the conventional solutions and in doing so fulfills this need.